The Proclaimers book on page 642 describes how the books of C T Russell were publicly burned in parts of the United States. Quoting from part of one paragraph:
“Many of the clergy used their pulpits to denounce
Russell’s writings. They commanded their flocks not to accept literature
distributed by the Bible Students. A number of them sought to induce public
officials to put a stop to this work. In some places in the United States –
among them, Tampa, Florida; Rock Island, Illinois; Winston-Salem, North
Carolina; and Scranton, Pennsylvania – they supervised public burning of books
written by Russell.”
In 2019, a correspondent wrote to the Watchtower
Society and asked for supporting evidence for this book burning. The Office of
Public Information kindly provided the following documentation. Scans of four
items were sent.
The first, and familiar to many readers already, was
this page from J F Rutherford’s Great
Battle in Ecclesiastical Heavens, which reproduced the charred remains of
one copy of The Divine Plan of the Ages.
The caption ‘Rescued from the Flames of the
Destroyer’ lists the places where public burnings had taken place up to 1915.
This is the list reproduced in the Proclaimers book.
Such events made the newspapers. The Harrisburgh
Telegraph (PA) for January 23, 1915, reported on a proposed public burning of
books in front of the United Brethren Church.
With an ecumenical touch some books of Christian Science were to be
added to the same bonfire. However, the paper did announce that “the books most
bitterly condemned by Evangelist Hillis were Russell’s ‘Millinial (sic) Dawn’ and the publications of the ‘Watch Tower
Bible and Tract Society.’”
The next year, the Hopkinsville Kentuckian for
August 19, 1916, reported on a similar event.
The longest newspaper account was from 1919. The Alexandria Gazette (Virginia) for December 5, 1919, gave quite a favourable review of Russell’s work, noting that they “abound in quotations from holy writ.” It suggested that most of the protestors had probably not actually read them. The book burning was part of a revivalist drive at a Primitive Methodist Church. The books were dumped on a street corner, doused in kerosene, and the paper painted an entertaining picture of two hundred “religionists” (their words) dancing around the flames while singing hymns.
The newspaper story ended with the paragraph:
“Pastor Russell’s books have given an impetus to Bible study. This fact alone should save them from the bonfire.”
The collective burning of CTR lectures also stated in 1920. 200 people did it. See The Watch Tower February 1, 1920 p. 36. I also know another case described in the Polish publication from 1918. This applies to people who left the Polish congregation in Detroit.
ReplyDeleteThis is perhaps the oldest recorded incident (in 1905) of a Society publication burning. However, the CTR does not provide a date:
ReplyDelete„Thus do we account for the burning of the WATCH TOWER publications. In one or two cases the burning was done in public;” (The Watch Tower August 15, 1905 p. 3615).
I would guess, and it is only that, that the majority of book burning events in the USA affecting Bible Students occurred during the period between the banning of The Finished Mystery between March 1918 and the June 1918 trial of Rutherford and his companions. Banning and burning books always proves counterproductive, of course, since it gives more publicity to the ideas thought ‘radical’ than the publishers themselves could ever have dreamed of.
ReplyDeleteAnd this is the first degree of banning JW in Germany in the 1930s and burning everything, including Bibles and books:
ReplyDelete*** yb74 p. 112 Part 1—Germany ***
Despite the energetic attempts of Brother Harbeck, the branch overseer in Switzerland, to prevent it, books, Bibles and pictures weighing a total of 65,189 kilograms were taken from the Society’s factory on August 21, 23 and 24, loaded into twenty-five trucks and then publicly burned at the edge of Magdeburg. The printing costs for the material amounted to some 92,719.50 marks. Additionally, there were numerous publications confiscated and then burned or otherwise destroyed in the various congregations, such as, for example, in Cologne, where publications worth at least 30,000 marks were destroyed. The Golden Age in its June 1, 1934, issue reported that the probable total value of property (furniture, literature, etc.) destroyed was between two and three million marks.
Canada
ReplyDelete*** yb79 pp. 80-81 Canada ***
But this activity did not occur without clerical opposition. At least two of Christendom’s ministers in Ontario publicly burned copies of Millennial Dawn and denounced Brother Russell, as well as distributors of the books.
Thank you for sharing this information
ReplyDelete